The Influence of Doctors’ Online Reputation on the Sharing of Outpatient Experiences: Empirical Study

作者：Yang Wang, Hong Wu, Xueqin Lei, Jingxuan Shen, Zhanchun Feng · 发表于：Journal of Medical Internet Research · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.2196/16691 · 被引用次数：36 · 研究领域：Corporate Identity and Reputation、Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare、Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare

BACKGROUND: The internet enables consumers to evaluate products before purchase based on feedback submitted by like-minded individuals. Displaying reviews allows customers to assess comparable experiences and encourages trust, increased sales, and brand positivity. Customers use reviews to inform decision making, whereas organizations use reviews to predict future sales. Prior studies have focused on manufactured products, with little attention being paid to health care services. In particular, whether patients prefer to use websites to discuss doctors' reputation has so far remained unanswered. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate how patient propensity to post treatment experiences changes based on doctors' online reputation (medical quality and service attitude) in delivering outpatient care services. Further, this study examines the moderating effects of hospitals' (organizational) online reputation and disease severity. METHODS: Fractional logistic regression was conducted on data collected from 7183 active doctors in a Chinese online health community to obtain empirical results. RESULTS: =.052; P<.001) and who work in hospitals with a higher online reputation (β=.001; P<.001). Patients are more likely to share experiences of doctors who treat less severe diseases, as opposed to those treating severe diseases (β=-.004; P=.009). In addition, hospitals' online reputation positively (negatively) moderates the relationship between medical quality (service attitude) and ...